Removing Peoples

Forced Removal in the Modern World

Edited by Richard Bessel and Claudia B. Haake

Description

One of the terrible and tragic themes of modern history is the forced removal of millions of human beings. Scarcely a corner of the world has been spared the violence of the forced removal of people from their homes for political, economic, "racial," religious, or cultural reasons. The causes, course, and consequences of the removal of peoples from their homes form a central theme in the history of the modern world. While removing people from their homes by force did not begin suddenly in the nineteenth century, the combination of the development of a global (capitalist) economy, of modern race-thinking, of world wars, of the triumph of popular and national sovereignty, and of new technological means of physically uprooting and transporting peoples has given this phenomenon a quantitatively and qualitatively new character. Removal has been a global phenomenon, and therefore this volume treats it within the frame of world history and international comparison. Examples discussed range from the United States in the 1830s to the expulsion of pied noir settlers from Algeria in the 1960s. A number of factors reshaped the older practices of forced migration and helped to make the removals discussed in this volume distinctly "modern." These include the use of modern apparatuses of administration, communication, and coercion, as well as warfare based on modern technology and organization. When it became possible to remove human beings on a massive scale, people may have started to consider doing just that--and especially so in crises connected to war, colonization, or decolonization, as the studies assembled in this volume demonstrate.

Removing Peoples

Forced Removal in the Modern World

Edited by Richard Bessel and Claudia B. Haake

Table of Contents

Part I: Introductory Remarks 1. Introduction, Richard Bessel and Claudia B. Haake2. Explaining Forced Migration, Alf LüdtkePart II: Forced Removal and Indigenous Peoples 3. On the Trail of Tears: Daniel Butrick's Record of the Removal of the Cherokees, Tim Alan Garrison4. Breaking the Bonds of People and Land, Claudia B. Haake5. The Federal Indian Relocation Programme of the 1950s and the Urbanization of Indian Identity, Donald L. Fixico6. Calculating Lives: The Number and Narrative of Removals in Queensland, 1859-1972, Mark Copland7. The Slave Trade as Enforced Migration in the Central Sudan of West Africa, Paul E. LovejoyPart III: Forced Removal and War 8. The Great Unweaving: The Removal of Peoples in Europe, 1875-1949, Donald Bloxham9. Explaining Genocide: The Fate of the Armenians in the Late Ottoman Empire, Ronald Grigor Suny10. Trial Run: The Deportation of the Terek Cossacks 1920, Shane O'Rourke11. National and International Planning of the 'Transfer' of Germans from Czechoslovakia and Poland, Detlef Brandes12. 'Nobody's People': The Dalits of Punjab in the Forced Removal of 1947, Gyanendra Pandey13. The 1947 Partition of India and Migration: A Comparative Study of Punjab and Bengal, Ian Talbot14. Explaining Transfer: Zionist Thinking and the Creation of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, Benny MorrisPart IV: Forced Removal in Post-Colonial Times 15. Sustainable Violence: Mass Resettlement, Strategic Villages, and Militias in Anti-Guerrilla Warfare, Christian Gerlach16. Coerced or Free? Narrating the Reverse Migrations of Decolonization, Andrea SmithPart V: Concluding Thoughts 17. Removing Peoples in the 'Modern' World: A Comparative Perspective, Joanna de Groot

Removing Peoples

Forced Removal in the Modern World

Edited by Richard Bessel and Claudia B. Haake

Author Information

Richard Bessel is Professor of 20th Century History at the University of York.

Claudia B. Haake is Lecturer in History at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia.

Contributors:

Richard Bessel, University of York Donald Bloxham, Edinburgh University Detlef Brandes, Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf Mark Copland, Tiwi College on Melville Island Donald L. Fixico, Arizona State University Tim Alan Garrison, Portland State University (Oregon) Christian Gerlach, University of Pittsburgh Joanna de Groot, University of York Claudia B. Haake, La Trobe University (Melbourne, Australia) Paul E. Lovejoy, York University (Ontario, Canada) Alf Lüdtke, University of Erfurt Benny Morris, Ben-Gurion University (Israel) Shane O'Rourke University of York Gyanendra Pandey, Emory University (Atlanta) Andrea Smith, Lafayette College Ronald Grigor Suny, University of Michigan Ian Talbot, University of Southampton